An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days. Under
artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression
beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.

It confirms that a single celled organism can be pressured into evolving under lab conditions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the evolution.
ID/Creationism is Easter Bunny, Tinker Bell stuff unless you toss in something like OMGAliens tinkering in the past to create us.

I'll believe we were created by aliens quicker than some invisible dude that's gonna be upset and condemn me for all of eternity to unending torture
if I don't acknowledge it's existence and kiss the feet. lolz.

Anyway, cool stuff!
It'll be fun to see how this pans out.
For now, however, the only thing this proves is that a single cell can be poked and prodded through artificial means in a lab into changing its habits
into multicelular-ism.

Evolution without doubt has taken place, we can see eveidence for it EVERYWHERE. However, like many people I cant get my head around the Cambrian
period. I absolutely do not believe in gods or creationism etc but I cant help but think someone or something gave earth a jumpstart back then.

There are some vids on youtube covering the cambrian period so if anyone doesnt know about it just do a search on youtube for it. Beware of the
creationist vids though, they try to use it as proof of their beliefs.

So now the goal posts are being moved once again. Creationists have always claimed that it is impossible for a single-cell organism to become a
multicellular organism. Now there is proof that this can occur. Whether or not it happened in a lab or not this proves that there is no magical
mechanism that prevents "macroevolution."

"Artificial pressure" just means pressure either higher or lower than the average pressure at current atmospheric conditions. A lot of you are
getting thrown off by semantics.

In nature, there are ALL KINDS of bizarre environments where the temperature is wildly different, pressure is wildly diferent, exposure to light is
different, etc. What if in nature, these yeast cells were under 1000 feet of water? That's totally natural pressure, but far greater than you'd find
in a laboratory - to simulate that, you would need to create "artificial" pressure. The "artificial" environment is found ALL over nature - but to
study it under laboratory conditions they have to use methods like this.

Hmmmm.... I'll have to read more into this, but this little bit here makes me highly suspect about what we're actually talking about:

Within just a few weeks, individual yeast cells still retained their singular identities, but clumped together easily. At the end of two months,
the clumps were a permanent arrangement. Each strain had evolved to be truly multicellular, displaying all the tendencies associated with “higher”
forms of life: a division of labor between specialized cells, juvenile and adult life stages, and multicellular offspring.

If anything, it sounds more like a colony arrangement, like the portuguese man o' war jellyfish...just much much simpler in concept and consisting
only of a single type of organism.

I'll definitely bookmark this for further looking, though. I come down on the suspect side of evolution, admittedly, but...meh. We'll see what
this turns out to actually mean.

this doesn't confirm evolution, it confirms that a power greater than that of the creature is required for it's creation.

i call that power God.

But, IT DID, IN FACT, HAPPEN.

Within just a few weeks, individual yeast cells still retained their singular identities, but clumped together easily. At the end of two months,
the clumps were a permanent arrangement. Each strain had evolved to be truly multicellular, displaying all the tendencies associated with “higher”
forms of life: a division of labor between specialized cells, juvenile and adult life stages, and multicellular offspring.

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT saying that The Theory of Evolution rests on this single experiment.

I'm saying that this experiment is yet another proof (factoid) for Evolution.; One of many proofs.

An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days. Under
artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression
beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.

“Multicellularity is the ultimate in cooperation,” said Travisano, who wants to understand how cooperation emerges in selfishly competing
organisms. “Multiple cells make make up an individual that cooperates for the benefit of the whole. Sometimes cells give up their ability to
reproduce for the benefit of close kin.”

So this happens naturally. From one cell to multiple cells that help each other, within 60 days.

The only difference between those yeast cells and us (human collectivization) is that from our point of view they look small.

Heck, those yeast cells understand the meaning of "cooperation" much better than us humans lol

That is pretty cool! But I may be in the minority here, because I'm a Christian. However, I do believe that evolution IS God's creation. The Adam &
Eve thing in the garden of Eden came much later, long after one-celled organisms crawled from the primordial soup as developed creatures.

A facinating link to be sure but I see no evidence of evolution. The on a cellular basis no change has taken place at all... Where is the evolution?
Many single cellular ordanism have been forced togeather and formed a cooperative.. Very cool, but I see no evidence of change in the individual
cell structure or genetic code... Henceforth... Not evolution. Nothing has evolved here.

Yes, I did read that as well, but it seems more of opining than a factual interpretation of what we're seeing here as proving evolution in any
solid way.

As I said, I'm open to the idea and will see what comes of it and what more people wiser than myself have to say about it, but...eh. "Eh" is
really all I can as it doesn't seem as significant as is implied. It definitely might be, and I could be wrong, but...well...eh.

As to my mentioning it being like the jellyfish earlier, as something more akin to a colony situation, the classification of the man o' war and other
similar creatures kind of gets on my nerves. It's like saying a city or various other human systems are multicellular organisms because they would
collapse and die if they didn't have certain people and organizations fulfilling certain necessary roles, but all those people are still individual
organisms - who, granted, might die without the whole operation in place and working.

I'll just have to leave it at wanting to see what further comes of this, and how critical review by other experts ends up treating it.

And definitely agreed about cooperation - but, give them anywhere near our intelligence and personal motivation, and let's see how well that works
out!

An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days. Under
artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression
beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.

An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days. Under
artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression
beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.

An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days. Under
artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression
beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.

So, what does everybody think? Doesn't this simply confirm what most of us have known?

IMO It seems like science is progressing exponentially fast.... And confirming Evolution along the way...

The fact that it did so in the time frame and conditions, indicates that both Evolution AND Intelligent Design are proven by this in one way, and
dis-proven in another.

I would actually have thought that this explicitly disproves evolution by genetic drift and natural selection. Think about it, 60 days!

How many generations? What were the predation/selection pressures?

If I were an Evolutionist, I'd be a bit embarrassed by how this does NOT prove Evolution by the methods through which it is supposed to occur!

Just sayin'

edit on 18/1/2012 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)

Do me a favor...if you want to believe in GOD fine. If you want to believe that GOD used the EVOLUTIONARY process to create life on
Earth...fine...but when you talk about Intelligent design in the way the books about it have come out....you just look like someone who has no clue.
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